Tony Abbott is at pains to declare that our current military expedition into Iraq is a mission, not a war. Photo: AP

So how can we feel we are making a serious contribution to solving this awful problem? Perhaps if one of our jets goes down, our contribution will gain some sort of added meaning?

It sounds grand to have committed ourselves to this fight against evil but we need to face the fact that our commitment is symbolic more than it is meaningful.

A person who was cynical might ask why our nation in southern Asia needs to be spending resources this way except for the benefits to the political classes.

Peter Copleston, Westleigh

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Tony Abbott is at pains to declare that our current military expedition into Iraq is a mission, not a war. Does this mean that the army and air force personnel who will be putting their lives on the line will not be able to claim their involvement as war service, and therefore miss out on the financial and pension benefits of such service?

Warwick Hempel, Avoca Beach

We are supposedly having a debate between security and human rights, and we are ready to start bombing in Iraq. These seem to be treated as separate issues. They are no such thing. Borders in the Middle East were drawn to cross ethnic lines so that the resulting countries would have internal issues and be sensitive to outside pressure from the big post-colonial powers.

Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Hafez Assad in Syria kept these countries together and suppressed religious and ethnic extremists. This was not good human rights by Western standards, but the situation was a lot better for the average citizen than it is after 20 years of clumsy Western aggression.

Iraq has been split along ethnic fault lines - its borders will probably be redrawn. The fact that the Iraqi government gives us permission to bomb the uncontrolled north of its own country must be taken in this context. Australia is an aggressive, interfering nation and needs to acknowledge itself as such and rethink its foreign policy. Clearly there may be a counter-response, which is likely to be delivered by civilian terrorism as no one we are targeting in the Middle East has the military power to attack us with conventional weapons.

It is unsurprising that some Muslims are upset by Australia's aggression. What is surprising is that more Australians are not.

The latest bombing and ground offensive will bring grief to the Arabs and possibly to Australia. We must stop it.

Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, Woolwich

I wonder if it's possible to have a decent discussion on a question that bothers me, without the extremists or bigots spitting their venom on this page.

The question is, why does IS hate us?

The most common answer I hear is that they envy our way of life, and there is certainly some great things about living in this country. I have sat with people who live on the rubbish dump of Manila in the Philippines, and I would rather be down and out in Australia and be fed by such great caring places as Parramatta Mission or Bill Crews at Ashfield.

However, we must be careful to not be proud and arrogant here: there is a moral breakdown in Western society.

Our way of life does include drunken violence, crazy addiction to drugs, political corruption, and making women sex objects.

Of course the beheadings, the cruelty, the actions of the terrorists make us sick. But how can we go beyond the fanaticism and find peace?

Geoff Hinds, Merrylands

The recent search for motivation about young men looking to fight for IS or other radical Islamic groups could be related to the motivations of young idealistic Western men in 1936 going to fight for International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War.

After all, was it not George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway, among others - hardly a marginalised, ill-educated minority - who packed up their bags in the name of idealism, rushed off to war to kill others who also rose up in the name of their particular idealism?

The result: up to a million dead, not allowing for those dying from sickness and starvation - and they called that war the great adventure of their generation.

So, are the young men going for idealism, a great adventure and the creation of a warped but Islamic state any different, and will their leaders turn out any different from their predecessors once in power?

The sharia way of life I have come into contact with places an emphasis on faith and harmony.

So, should we be looking at these motivations and stop breast-beating about the failure of their community or the wider community to include these young men?

Paul Norberry, Wallsend

One wonders what the Greens would have done in 1939. Would they have fought Hitler or would they have sat around complaining about fighting?

Joseph Lee, Belfield

As predicted, IS are embedding their fighters in the local population and will soon be immune from air strikes. ("Syria air strikes prompt cruel revenge", October 4). They may have difficulty taking new territory because that will expose their fighters to air strikes. But how do you roll back their occupation of an area already bigger than Switzerland? How long will it be before the Abbott government starts making the case for frontline combat troops? So far the government has not demonstrated it has thought through this new involvement in Iraq.

Ian Nicholls, Baulkham Hills

Now that Tony Abbott has described IS as "declaring war on the world" and Obama is putting together "a coalition of nations", all engaged in bombing IS positions in Iraq and Syria, is this officially the start of "the Third World War"?

John Clark Burradoo

Majority are happy to share space with Muslims

Life for all my Muslim friends must be getting a little anxious right now. There's stories of abuse and assault on people in Muslim attire, mosques vandalised and a constant barrage of anti-Islam "news" coverage. It must be upsetting.

Not all Australians think you are the Devil, a misogynist or a terrorist. Remember that fear and outrage are media commodities and it is their value as commodities, not the attitude of the wider community, that is driving much of what we're seeing.

I'm sure some of you are angry and frightened. I know that a lot of the kids feel like the whole damn world is against them. It's not.

I refuse to participate in any of this idiocy. I don't care who, what or how you worship. You won't catch me screaming at women wearing niqabs or hijabs in the street, or posting hateful anti-Islam memes on social media.

I also refuse to take any part in any hysterical posturing. I refuse to see anyone as an enemy or a social problem on the advice of any newspaper that has a world news section one fifth the size of its sports section.

I do not believe in God but I do believe in Australia. Not Mr Abbott's mindless "Team Australia" nonsense but the real Australia. I believe Australia's essence is in the idea that everyone should be given a chance, that clothes and titles don't matter and, most importantly, that we are one family under the skin. Politics and religion are irrelevant beside the fact that we have all chosen to live here together in the best country in the world.

So, if you're a fellow Australian who also happens to be a Muslim, please stay frosty. Be aware that many, many people think the way I do. It's easy to forget this because ordinary, reasonable people do not tend to communicate by shouting slogans or waving poorly spelled banners outside mosques.

I want to remind you that our country doesn't actually belong to the people making all the noise right now. It's ours, and we're happy you're here with us.

Chris Lake Manly

Our fair society is disappearing

Working class culture picks up honourable mentions in both Roy Masters' articles in Saturday's sports section. In the news section there are allegations of bribery of union officials by employers, strong language and concerns about links with the ALP ("CFMEU's Parker was heard on phone calling official a 'dog'," October 4-5).

But one would search high and low for mention of the Labour Day long weekend some of us are enjoying. Workers and their unions made modern Australia, and yet the achievements of full employment with permanent jobs, good conditions and decent pay – which are disappearing faster than manufacturing, all in the name of flexibility and private profit – appear to elicit little comment. That both the Coalition and Labor support these moves without appearing to engage with the consequences is both astounding and cynical.

We lose sight of this good society at our peril, and we see the alternative already in an increasingly fearful and polarised Australia. We are no longer the lucky country, and we are anything but the world leaders in creating that better society we were 100 or even 40 years ago.

Colin Hesse Marrickville

Burqa commonsense

Many thanks to my fellow Australians for taking the lead in the ill-considered "Ban the burqa" circus. The "extraordinary public backlash" affirms my faith in the commonsense, decency and fairness on which ordinary Australians pride themselves. Perhaps politicians will consider taking wider soundings of the mood of the population when considering unfair and divisive suggestions, and begin to realise that the "angertainment" offered by some talkback radio and blogs is not necessarily beneficial in matters of importance. Ambit claims may work with the budget, but please don't fiddle with our values.

Sister Susan Connelly Croydon

Julia Baird is drawing a rather long bow with her comment, "After a burqa ban will there be nuns on the run?". Nuns no longer wear the habit. After Vatican 2 they were allowed to wear ordinary clothes with no hair covering and just a cross on the lapels of their blouses/shirts. I don't think Julia has anything to worry about there.

Margaret Priest Wallsend

Ticket resales legal

The article "Scalpers asking for fortunes as NRL grand final tickets sell out" (October 1) failed to make clear that as often as tickets to premium events like the NRL grand final sell over face value, many tickets to this and other live sports and entertainment events are also available for less. The article implied that there are times where online ticket resale is illegal, which is not the case. People are free to buy and sell tickets as they wish, which is as it should be. Once you own a ticket, or anything else for that matter, it is up to you what you do with it.

Alex Levenson viagogo

Property games

The Sydney real estate market has reached the point where my 11-year-old son insists that we include a "Chinese investor" for extra competition when we play Monopoly.

Alan Garrity North Narrabeen

How universities win

Matthew Knott raises the issue of "reputation recycling", and how "rankings feed reputation, which feeds resources, which sustain reputation and ranking" ("University rankings: reliable or rubbish?," October 4-5). I have been a student and teacher in both "sandstone" and "younger" universities for 30 years, and can strongly confirm what Matthew is saying.

In particular, it is the students themselves who facilitate "reputation recycling". Nothing improves the quality of graduates as much as the quality of the first-year intake. Sandstone universities attract the best students and so it is easy to produce the best graduates. Younger universities accept a lot of students who missed out on a place at a sandstone university. Despite offering teaching at least as good as sandstone universities, younger universities struggle to produce graduates of equal quality.

Jonathan Vincent Blaxland

Drink-campaign elephant

The response from the health lobby to the alcohol industry's responsible drinking campaign for the footy season is not surprising (Letters, October 3). Its view is that the industry has no role in educating consumers on moderate consumption, and that people need to be warned against drinking. The public has a different view. People expect the industry to invest in education campaigns and they believe that moderate consumption is acceptable.

The elephant in the room, however, is that the health lobby has not developed any meaningful campaign themselves in over a decade. And it is not for a lack of money. The federal and state governments have provided over a hundred million dollars since 2002 to the health lobby for education purposes. In that time the only effective (if not the only) campaigns remain the industry-funded ones via DrinkWise – "Kids absorb your drinking" highlighting the role of parents, "How to drink properly" aimed at 18 to 24-year-old binge drinking, and now "You won't miss a moment if you DrinkWise" for sporting events. The challenge for the health lobby is to articulate whether it is focused on reducing misuse, or just reducing total consumption.

Daylight fatigue

All this controversy about so-called "daylight saving" reminds me of the adage: "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and TIRED".

John Casey North Ryde

Missing them already: David Morrow and Warren Ryan defined rugby league

With the completion won and lost there were two people who defined rugby league, for me, and they were David Morrow and Warren Ryan. They painted a picture in words of what was going on at the ground, as though you were there. Even though this year has been a rocky road for both of them I will miss them, they were part of my radio experience from March to October for years. It will not be the same without them. I wish both of them all the best in the future and hopefully we will hear from them both, in some capacity, in 2015.

Robert Pallister Punchbowl

Now that the footy is finished, can we look forward to a greater representation of females in Herald sporting pages, even if it's only Gai, mares and fillies?

Lib Ruytenberg Caniaba

Fee fit for a prince

Frederick Shaw (Letters October 4-5), I too blanched at the price of $350 odd for a decent ticket to The King and I.

I asked the salesperson if I could possibly buy the ticket for $175 if I opted to see only "The King" and forgot about "I", but she didn't seem to get my drift.

Rosemary O'Brien Georges Hall

Secret life of cops

Why do police operations have a codename? Currently we have Strike Force Metalwork (Man arrested at Sydney Airport over body-in-the-boot investigation", October 4). What is the relevance?